COVID-19 Healthcare Supply-Boosting Efforts: 3D CAD and How to Help

Have skills and itching to make a difference with the shortages in coronavirus-related supplies? There are lots of individuals, companies, and communities organizing and many other open-source personal protection equipment (PPE) designs available. Investigate the list below to find a way to put your vital CAD-modeling, 3D-printing, nunchuck skills, and other talents to use!

There’s a lot going on (and a lot of projects!), so just remember, DO WHAT YOU DO BEST and you can help no matter if it’s in small ways are big ways. If you have any to add, please let us know in the comments below.

Disclaimer: We’re not making any claims of the effectiveness or safety of any of the work these organizations are doing. Use the info at these links at your own discretion and risk!

PPE Proposals

Engineers Assemble (Ventilator)

You can add to or download from this open-source library of ventilator CAD files. There’s also a section for respirator masks:

Isinnova (Ventilator)

This hacked snorkel mask is shown on Isinnova’s page for COVID19 engineering.

Durable PPE Project 2020 (Mask)

Thanks to John “Johnny Mac” McEleney of Onshape for sharing this with us. The proposal found in this link is for figuring out how to produce more durable, makeshift filtering masks. This idea adapts scuba masks with 3D-printed connectors and filter materials commonly used elsewhere in hospitals:

Copper 3D NanoHack (N95 Mask)

MIT MASKproject (N95 Mask)

A project from the MIT Media Lab to design an open hardware, reusable, sterilizable, modular, and filter-media agnostic face mask that aims to hit the N95 efficacy criteria. A collaboration with Helpful Engineering and organized by maskproject.tech.

Inventas (Face Shield)

The product designers at Inventas have created an infection protection visor that does not depend on 3D printers. Instead, it uses a simple elastic band. They provide the instructions, templates, and files here.

Stratasys (Face Shield)

Stratasys is heading up a COVID-19 initiative that brings together more than 150 organizations to produce 3D printed face shields. They’ve also provided the face shield design and files available for download.

Ponoko (Face Shield)

Ponoko has spun up the capacity to manufacture 2 million face shields at up to 100,000 per day. Using the open-source design from UW Makerspace (see below) they have a site to purchase assembled face shields in quantities of 5 to 2,000,000.

Prusa Printers (Face Shield)

These guys give warnings about when creating a 3D printed mask design, but face shields are a different story. Prusa Printers is working on finalizing their 3D-printed shield design, now in its 2nd revision and being field-tested. You can learn more about here:

WhiteClouds Bulk (Face Shield)

WhiteClouds has reported it manufacturing 3000 facemasks per day. The design is a full length face shield with a 1.5″ thick polyurethane foam headband. It’s also latex free and resistant to fogging. They have bulk pricing and bulk price ordering for 100+ face shields.

MIT Single-Piece (Face Shield)

MIT Project Manus in cooperation with Polymershapes has designed a flat-packed, single piece, foldable face shield that enables them to produce over 2.5 million per week. They’re currently taking orders by the case (125 shields/case).

Genesis Plastics (Face Shield)

Genesis Plastics Technologies, based out of Greeley, Colorado, announced they are also producing large quantities of face shields. They whipped up a design on the fly with a 3D-printed component to help in-state medical professionals facing shortages.

Origin (3D-Printed Nasal Testing Swabs)

Carbon (PPE)

3D Printer manufacturer Carbon is coordinating with partners to manufacture PPE and other medical equipment with Carbon Technology. The items currently include Nasopharyngeal Swabs and Face Shields. They can be contacted for more info.

3D HUBS COVID-19 Fund

This amazing project allows you to provide your computing power to run molecular protein folding simulations at home that goes towards finding cures for a wide range of illness, including the COVID-19 coronavirus.

Formlabs

Formlabs is matching up Formlabs customers willing to do 3D printing with those in the healthcare community in need of supplies. You can find out more at the link below and also sign up to be a volunteer.

EDUCATION

Coronavirus Tech Handbook

This open-source document covers a lot of areas including a section on “Engineering” that you can add to yourself. Sometimes this link is difficult to open due to high traffic. If that happens, you can try again at an hour more likely to be off-peak.

HP COVID-19 Prevention Methods

Hewlett-Packard has free, 3D printable design files right now for respirators, face shields, hands-free door openers, and mask adjusters (to make them more comfortable for long periods of wear). You can also submit your own designs to them. Find out more at this link:

Remote 3D Printing Presentations

Jason Lopes is an entertainment industry veteran currently working at Carbon. With children at home he sees the need for education on 3D printing. He is offering educators to host remote presentations to share his knowledge and fill the gaps. See his post on LinkedIn then reach out to him for details:

UW Makerspace Suppliers

Contests/Challenges

CoVent-19 Challenge

This challenge is “An Open Innovation Effort to Design a Rapidly Deployable Mechanical Ventilator“. There are a bunch of MD’s on their team, so that’s a great sign. You can sign-up on this page to learn more:

Designer Contest: Everyday Necessities

Prusa Printers is holding a contest in addition to its own development work. This one is focused not on medical supplies, but on the everyday things we all might run out of in this (hopefully) temporary chaos:

Erin is a digital nomad and directs optical engineering and publishing at Spire Starter LLC: www.SpireStarter.com Her academic background is in applied physics and she used to work for The Man designing optics for indoor lighting, automotive headlamps and tail lights (Corvette, Escalade, Chevrolet Silverado, etc.), optical sensors, and sharks with frickin' laser beams attached to their heads. On the side, Erin is an artist, Christian sci-fi writer, and lover of beer, bourbon, and bourbon-infused beer.